


Burn It to the Ground

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Arson, Child Abuse, M/M, Memories, Mentions of past abuse, mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They hadn’t been here in nearly eight years. Longer probably, but Richard had stopped keeping track a while ago. It felt like eight. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to be here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burn It to the Ground

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a donnie darko reference feel free to hit me in the head

They hadn’t been here in nearly eight years. Longer probably, but Richard had stopped keeping track a while ago. It felt like eight. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to be here.

“Jim…” he muttered but his brother just got out of the car and grabbed a tank of gasoline from the trunk, lugging it to the door. Richard scrambled out of the car, rushing behind him, repeating his twin’s name until Jim finally looked up.

“Richard,” Jim said.

“Why?”

“We were… what, four years old? On the couch, remember. He held your head and forced your jaw open and when you started crying too hard he opened my mouth and made me finish him,” Jim said numbly, opening the tank and pouring gasoline on to the couch, not all of it though. There was still more.

The house seemed to have been abandoned after they left. There wasn’t any signs of life, their da probably still owned the house but no one had come looking for him. They wouldn’t be surprised if someone actually thanked them for burning this shit hole to the ground. There was evidence of rats and mice everywhere, dropping and scratches on the wallpaper. The house was decaying. It made Richard sad.

Jim was wandering, having abandoned the tank and Richard followed. Into the bathroom.

“Thirteen. You were cutting,” Jim said, pointing to the bloodstains on the sink. “I… I didn’t stop you the first few times and just watched and listened to you cry and thought about how broken you were and how beautiful it was.”

He went back into the living room and returned with the tank, pouring gasoline onto the fraying rug. It smelled horrible and made Richard retch, but Jim took his hand anyway and dragged him through the house, pointing things out and bringing up things Richard had shoved into the back of his mind for a reason.

Then they were in their old room. Jim’s pin ups were still on the wall though neither boy had really looked at them. Richard liked the lighting of the photographs, Jim thought they looked aesthetically pleasing but not sexy. It made them feel normal. They were peeling now, and faded. Their window was shattered, probably blown open and crashing against the walls, maybe years ago and there was a circle of decay and filth and broken glass around it.

“It’s… Jim, it’s broken,” Richard muttered. “The whole fucking house.”

Jim grinned at him. “On the bed, first shag. You’d been crying and I’d been holding you and I said we should and you had no idea what the fuck was going on but you liked it, didn’t you?”

“It scared me,” Richard admitted. “And it hurt.”

“But you liked it,” Jim insisted. “And before that, too. Close your eyes, I want you to remember this.”

Richard swallowed and sat on the bed, keeping most of his weight on his feet, too afraid of the frame breaking. He took a deep breath and nodded for Jim to go on.

“We were four, yeah? A few weeks before the couch. Mum. You cried and I didn’t and she said she loved us but she fucking left us, Richard. I don’t think she loved us enough to stay and protect us. She was only thinking of hersel-”

“Stop it,” Richard shrieked, opening his eyes and trying to speak around the lump in his throat. “Jimmy, stop it, please.”

Jim shook his head at Richard. “She was a selfish  _bitch_  and I’m glad she left.”

Richard bit his lip until he tasted blood and watched Jim pace around the room some more. Their mum had been nice, Richard knew Jim was lying. He had to be, he’d cried after mum left, when they knew she was gone, when he thought Richard couldn’t see.

“And… Seventeen. I think. Killed da, right there, if we shined a light in here you’d probably still be able to see blood,” Jim said.

“Where d-did you put his body?” Richard asked quietly, suddenly feeling like the house might be haunted. Maybe their da was still here.

“He’s not gonna fucking ghost rape us, you twat. Back yard. I… I… That night, when you were asleep at the hotel…” Jim looked like he might cry for a moment before turning over the can of gasoline and they listened to it glug out onto the floor.

“Go outside,” Jim ordered. Richard didn’t protest, just stumbled out of the door and tried not to cry too hard. He could see the flames already licking at the sky, spreading through the house. Jim smelled like smoke and gasoline when he emerged.

“It’s gone,” Jim spat. “All of it, all of those fucking memories are fucking gone.”

Richard shook his head and took Jim’s hand and gave up on not sobbing, his face contorting in pain and grief. He missed mum, he wished she’d been there, maybe things would be different. Maybe he wouldn’t be such of a screw up, a disappointment. Maybe Jim wouldn’t kill people, maybe they wouldn’t fuck or tear each other apart then put the pieces back together and say it was love. Maybe they wouldn’t be broken.

“Stop fucking thinking,” Jim hissed, turning on his heel and storming to the car. Richard swallowed and tried to stop but he didn’t. He tried to think of good things, good feeling but all he could think about was that he still had Jim.

“I love you,” Richard said, not expecting an answer. Not getting one.

They ignored each other’s tears on the car ride home.


End file.
